In progress at UNHQ

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

9 May 1996



Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

19960509 FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY

Sylvana Foa, Spokesman for Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, began today's noon briefing by saying that the Secretary-General was in Atlanta and would be taking part in the CNN World Contributors' Conference called the Global Forum. "We tried very hard to get a 'feed' of this, but we'll only get the audio. It will be on channel 3 or Mx 058 between 1 and 2 p.m", she said.

Ms. Foa said the Secretary-General's report on Western Sahara had gone to the Security Council. In his last report to the Council, he said he hoped the identification process could resume without delay. Unfortunately, as a result of the positions of the parties, all efforts to resume that process had failed. "In fact, we have identified now 60,000 persons, but there are 156,924 applicants remaining to be identified." She said that, in his report, the Secretary-General concluded that the willingness did not exist to give MINURSO (United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara) the cooperation needed for it to resume and complete the identification process within a reasonable period of time. It was stalemated, and he was recommending that the process be suspended until such time as the parties provided convincing evidence that they were fully committed to resuming it without further obstacles.

"This means that remaining members of the identification commission will leave the area at the end of May this year", she said, "with the exception of a few who will stay behind to close up shop and get their records all together". The civilian police component would also be withdrawn except for a very small number which would be kept to maintain contact with both sides. On the military side, the maintenance of the cease-fire had been a major achievement for MINURSO and, therefore, the Secretary-General was recommending that the presence be considered still essential. The Secretary-General was, however, proposing that it be reduced by 20 per cent from 288 to 230 military personnel. At the end of the day, said the Secretary-General, the United Nations could not abandon its responsibility to seek a political settlement. He was proposing to maintain a political office headed by his acting representative, and also a liaison office. The offices would maintain a dialogue with the parties and the two neighbouring countries, Ms. Foa continued. He concluded his report by stating that, "although the conditions don't exist today to achieve the settlement plan, we mustn't let all our efforts go to waste, and we must build on the achievements we have made so far -- the identification of 60,000 people, the maintenance of the cease-fire. He is asking for a six-month extension of MINURSO's mandate".

Ms. Foa said the Council took up Bosnia and Herzegovina today, and members were then briefed by Chinmaya Gharekhan, the Secretary-General's Senior Political Adviser, "on the flashing red lights in Burundi". Mr. Gharekhan said, that since 29 April, 14,200 new refugees had gone into Zaire and had been registered.

Ms. Foa reminded correspondents that Marrack Goulding, Under-Secretary- General for Political affairs, would be at the briefing shortly to talk to correspondents about Guatemala. (See separate briefing notes.)

She announced that the Secretary-General's Special Envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, had begun his good will mission as a follow-up to the fact-finding mission to Nigeria and regarding the clashes between Nigerian and Cameroonian forces in the disputed Bakassi Peninsula. He was scheduled to meet with President Paul Biya of Cameroon today in Paris. He would then go on to Nigeria to meet with President Sani Abacha and other senior government officials, and was expected to return to Headquarters towards the end of next week to report to the Secretary-General. "Our last reports say there is continued fighting between Cameroonian and Nigerian forces in the Bakassi Peninsula. So we are counting on Mr. Brahimi."

On Angola, she said that, following yesterday's unanimous Security Council adoption of resolution 1055 extending the mandate of the United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM III) for two months, the Angolan Parliament passed what the United Nations considered a landmark law granting amnesty to National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) troops. That amnesty covered crimes against the State since 31 May 1991. The amnesty law, she added, would now pave the way for the integration of UNITA and government forces into a new national army -- "so, that is more good news".

Ms. Foa said that at 2 p.m. there would be a briefing in the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) Club with Craig Kielburger, who was in the audience at the noon briefing. He was 13 years old and from Canada, and he was the founder of Free the Children, a human rights organization that was fighting child labour in developing countries. He became aware of the problem of child labour after reading about the death in April 1995 of Iqbal Masih, a 12-year-old boy from Pakistan who fought against child labour in his own country.

Further, Cornelius Samaruga, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was inviting UNCA members to a party at 5:30 p.m. in the UNCA Club.

Asked for an update on Liberia, Ms. Foa said that she had very little beyond what she gave to correspondents yesterday. "What we got today is that at the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) meeting of nine in Accra the day before yesterday, the Foreign Ministers agreed that a number of conditions must be fulfilled by the Liberian factions before ECOWAS decides on

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 9 May 1996

its further involvement in Liberia. The ECOWAS summit which was scheduled to be held yesterday was, therefore, postponed until early August to allow time for the Liberians to fulfil the conditions."

She said that the conditions were the ones she listed yesterday -- restoration of the cease-fire; withdrawal of the fighters; deployment of the Economic Community of West African States' Monitoring Observer Group (ECOMOG) in Monrovia; the removal of arms from the city; and the restoration of Monrovia as a safe haven. "They want freedom of movement for civilians; the return of weapons taken from ECOMOG and all those vehicles you stole from the United Nations, give them back because we are having problems operating without them."

In response to a question on the "oil-for-food" talks, she said that they began again today at 11 a.m.

A correspondent asked for a comment on the Financial Times article of yesterday which alleged that financial cutbacks in the United Nations began at the level below the Secretary-General and went down without seeming to affect the Secretary-General and his "lavish" travel schedule or hotel accommodation. Ms. Foa responded that the article was rather nasty. "The financial problems affect all of us, including the Secretary-General. I would hardly call his travel schedule lavish. He has a lot of really backbreaking trips to places all over the world that are quite fatiguing. I have been on one of these trips with him and, let me tell you, it is hardly travelling in style. The amount of work that has to be done. I think it was a petty comment."

Asked if the writer, Mr. Mortimer, was denied an interview, Ms. Foa said that Mr. Mortimer never asked for an interview.

A correspondent inquired about the statement by Enrique ter Horst, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Haiti, that the Security Council was planning a visit to Haiti. Ms. Foa said that she did not know about it, and that she was not at Mr. ter Horst's briefing.

Juan Carlos Brandt of the Office of the Spokesman, who was at the noon briefing, said Mr. ter Horst had stated that a Security Council mission to Haiti was being discussed. If the Security Council went there on a mission, it was quite clear that it would go at the invitation of the Government of Haiti. Mr. ter Horst did not indicate a time for that mission, but had said that, hopefully, it would happen before the end of June. A correspondent asked if there was any further reaction to the Israeli characterization of military adviser Franklin van Kappen's report on the shelling of the United Nations compound in Qana as "absurd". Ms. Foa said the United Nations was putting all its energies right now into doing as much as it could to get the peace process back on track and making sure that the cease-fire held and that it would really move forward. "We have gotten to the position where there is no point in going back and forth."

Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 9 May 1996

Asked if the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) had been invited to the meeting taking place in Washington tomorrow, Ms. Foa said that she had not heard about an invitation. The UNIFIL was out in the field. "I would imagine that we will be kept up to date on the meeting."

Asked if any more letters from United States citizens making contributions to the United Nations had been received, she said that she should have brought a stack to read to correspondents. Yesterday, Ahmad Fawzi of the Spokesman's Office gave an interview about the letters. At the end of the interview, the correspondent wrote him a check. "He must have done quite a good job. The correspondent said, 'Here is a check for me, my wife and our dog too', because he wanted to make sure that his dog got in on it."

She said that the money received from those checks was now over $16,000. It was mounting up.

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For information media. Not an official record.